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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



DISCOURSES ON 
MIRACLES. 

BY 

BISHOP S. M. MERRILL, LL. D. 

AND 

BISHOP HENRY W. WARREN, LL. D. 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE. 
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS. 



THE UBRAKY OF 
CONGRESS, 

TWO C ' dS, RfcCEiVK* 
OOPVRWHT ENTRY 

GLkSSGu XXc Nc 

L * S i4-C 

COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
JENNINGS & PIE. 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 

The two discourses composing this book 
may be regarded as the outgrowth of recent 
discussions on the credibility of miracles as 
recorded in the Scriptures, of which dis- 
cussion Chicago seemed to be the storm- 
center. The one by Bishop Merrill was de- 
livered, by request, before the Methodist 
Ministers' Association of that city, and so 
satisfactory was it to that body that it was 
unanimously adopted as the sense of the 
meeting on the question then being so vigor- 
ously discussed by the public press. It was 
printed in the Northwestern Christian Ad- 
vocate, and also issued in pamphlet form, 
and many thousands of copies circulated. At 
the request of the Publishers, the Bishop 
has revised and enlarged it considerably for 
presentation in this volume. 
3 



4 Publishers' Preface. 

A few weeks later Bishop H. W. Warren 
addressed the Methodist Social Union of 
Chicago on the same subject, by request of 
that body. This is a representative body, 
and the audience of over seven hundred, 
mostly composed of the laity, was greatly 
delighted with the address, and requests for 
its publication became both numerous and 
insistent; so much so that we were glad to 
be able to comply. As the two discourses 
treat the subject from different standpoints, 
and cover the ground so completely, we have 
thought it wise to issue them in a single 
volume, to which arrangement both bishops 
have very promptly assented. We send them 
forth with the hope and prayer that they 
may satisfy many who have become en- 
tangled with doubts, and strengthen those 
who believe in miracles as recorded in the 
Holy Scriptures. 

Jennings & Pye. 



MlEACLES. 

By Bishop S. M. MEBEILL, LL. D. 



MIRACLES. 

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus 
Christ his only Son, our Lord; a word 
who was conceived by the Holy Persona '« , 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: suffered 
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, 
and buried; the third day he rose from the 
dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth 
at the right hand of God the Father Al- 
mighty; from thence he shall come to judge 
the quick and the dead." Then, of course, 
I believe in miracles. 

My faith in the Bible as the Word of 
God has not been shaken by any new dis- 
coveries in science, history, archaeology, or 
criticism; nor has my mind been disturbed 
7 



8 Miracles. 

by any recent agitation touching the pos- 
sibility of miracles, or the probability of 
their having occurred just as reported in 
the gospel records. There is no reason for 
alarm in the presence of the fullest and 
freest investigation of all the facts which 
modern learning is supposed to have found 
in opposition to the faith we have long 
cherished. God has not left himself without 
witness, and his truth will triumph in spite 
of the boastings of adversaries. In fact, the 
matters alleged as new discoveries, antago- 
nistic to the Scriptures, whether in science, 
or philosophy, or history, or philology, or 
exegesis, are not nearly so numerous nor so 
decisive in bearing, so far as the issue be- 
tween faith and unbelief is concerned, as 
they are supposed to be, or as the enemies 
of the gospel would have us believe. It 
is really astonishing, when we take the whole 
situation into the account, how little there 



MlKACLES. 9 

is in the heresies of modern times that can 
not be traced to the times before the period 
of the Keformation, and what small ad- 
vances the skepticism and rationalism of to- 
day have made beyond the infidelity of cen- 
turies gone by. From what we hear abont 
the discoveries of our times, and of the 
progress of knowledge which sheds light on 
the moral relations of men and on^the dis- 
pensations of the Almighty, one would be 
led to suppose that scholarship is a new 
thing — that we are just emerging from bar- 
barism — and that the men who laid the 
foundations of our civilization, of our gov- 
ernments, of our schools, and of our 
Churches, were pigmies in comparison with 
the giants of our day, if not ignorant and 
deluded fanatics. 

It is not denied, however, that the shift- 
ings of unbelief and the changes of method 
in the attacks upon the citadel of our faith 



10 Miracles. 

call for new adjustments of the defenses 
of truth and new statements of the grounds 

General °"^ 0Ur a U e gi ance to Him who is 

Principles, himself the miracle of the ages, 
the incarnate Word of God. More and more 
we are coming to recognize the fact that the 
object of our faith is the person of the Son 
of God, and that the hottest battles of the 
future, as of the past, will rage about this 
central idea of the manifestation of God 
in human flesh. All other questions and 
issues, and all speculations and theorizings 
about miracles and inspiration, will pass 
from the front and become incidental in 
the presence of this supreme issue. "What 
think ye of Christ?" is the question of 
questions, and so momentous is it that an 
answer of some kind must be given from 
every person who pretends to possess and 
exercise the gift of reason. If Jesus of 
Nazareth was the Christ, he was what he 



Miracles. 11 

claimed to be, not only in position and office, 
but in origin and nature, coming down from 
heaven, and bearing the image and per- 
fections of God. He was above nature — 
superior to nature — independent of nature 
in the essential elements of his being, and 
therefore able to control all the natural 
forces that stood between him and any re- 
sult necessary to reveal God or to accom- 
plish the object of his mission. What he 
did of an extraordinary character was done 
to declare what he was, and to make known 
the purpose for which he came into the 
world. If he was not a supernatural per- 
son, he was either deceived or a deceiver, 
and either conclusion is fatal to his pre- 
tensions as a Teacher sent from God. But 
if he was himself supernatural, then super- 
natural works were his natural testimonials 
and his proper witnesses. To these he ap- 
pealed, and on their testimony he depended 



12 MlBACLES. 

for his success in planting his kingdom 
among men. 

It is true that we depend more largely 
than formerly upon the internal evidences 
of the authority of the Scriptures, and pos- 
sibly give higher place to the inner attesta- 
tions of consciousness and of conscience and 
reason, but we do not discard, and would 
not discount the external evidences which 
have been so valuable in the past. Miracles 
and prophecy, verified as real, have ever 
stood, and ever will stand, as competent and 
accepted proofs of the Divine approval of 
those who come as messengers of God. 
Prophecy is also miracle; for he who fore- 
tells contingent events beyond the possible 
knowledge of the unaided human intellect 
gives the highest proof of supernatural en- 
dowment and of the inspiration which is 
from God. A miracle of knowledge is not 
less a miracle than the most wonderful ef- 



MlKACLES. 13 

fects produced in the realm of physical 
nature. 

Miracles in their nature are extraordinary, 
out of harmony with the ordinary course 
of things, having a sphere of their own, and 
are not to be expected in ordinary con- 
ditions; nor are they to be reduced to order, 
or to be classified as events to be brought 
under the cognizance of reason, or to be 
explained as to their process or mode, but 
only to be attested as to the fact of their 
occurrence, either by the senses of those 
present to witness them, or by a sufficiency 
of testimony vouchsafed to those who are 
not in reach for ocular demonstrations. 
All the works of God are wonderful, but 
nil the wonderful works of God are not 
miracles. Miracles are prodigies, but all 
prodigies are not miracles. All miracles are 
the work of God, and so manifestly the work 
of God that both the senses and the reason 



14 Miracles. 

apprehend the agency of God at once npon 
witnessing them, while reason does the same 
in those to whom the testimony of their 
occurrence comes with convincing power. 
The immediate agency of God is the essen- 
tial thought, and that whether they are 
wrought with or without human or other 
visible instrumentalities, and therefore they 
are wonderful to us, and incomprehensible, 
not only in the phenomena attending and 
attesting them, but also in their occasion 
and design. 

The attitude of any particular person 
towards miracles must depend on his concep- 

Qod and tion of God, and of the relation 
Nature. £ q. 0( j ^ ^g external universe. 
If, like Spinoza, or in any Pantheistic way, 
he identifies God with the universe or with 
nature, then what God does nature does, 
and nature works blindly and of necessity, 
and miracles are out of the question; for in 



MlEACLES. 15 

such a system nature alone works, and all 
events, whether more or less marvelous, are 
results of fixed law, and without moral de- 
sign. Neither Pantheism nor outright 
Atheism can find any place for miracles. 

The old Augustinian conception of God 
working in nature by immediate agency and 
arbitrary will, almost to the exclusion of 
any intrinsic force in matter, or any other 
thing worthy the name of natural law, shuts 
out the idea of miracles nearly if not quite 
as effectually as does that of the Pantheist. 
If God in his immanence is so efficient in 
nature that his will is the only law, and 
second causes have no place, that inference 
is not rash which holds all effects and all 
events, whether seemingly ordinary or ex- 
traordinary, to be alike natural and alike 
miraculous. Unless we can distinguish God 
from nature, and conceive of him as above 
nature, and independent of it, and yet recog- 



16 Miracles. 

nize nature as a system governed by law — 
the laws enstamped on nature being so re- 
lated to the system as to be an essential 
part of it — it is not possible for us to form 
an adequate idea of either nature or of 
miracles. God is God, and nature is nature. 
This is absolute truth. God is no part of 
nature, and nature is no part of God. God 
is not of nature, but nature is of God. "For 
of him, and through him, and unto him are 
all things." If God of his own fullness 
created the universe and ordained its laws, 
and has never abdicated his sovereignty, he 
is its Proprietor and Ruler, and may at his 
will touch and retard or hasten any move- 
ment of its vast machinery, or interject new 
forces without violence or interruption to 
its general order or harmony. In this con- 
ception only do we find a place for miracles, 
and here we find ample room. 
The denial of the divinity of Christ and 



MlEACLES. 17 

of his supernatural birth does not neces- 
sarily exclude miracles, as God has some- 
times wrought miracles, according to the 
Scriptures, by the hands of men of like 
nature with ourselves; but the denial of the 
possibility of miracles shuts the door against 
the belief in his supernatural birth, and 
against any conception of an incarnation. 
It requires that he who claimed to come 
from God, as other men do not come, be 
looked upon as making a false claim, and 
therefore as consciously or unconsciously 
deceiving the people. No more serious im- 
plication of his wisdom or his integrity can 
be made. Infidels hesitate not to make it, 
nor do Pantheists, if any distinction be- 
tween these classes be allowable; but so- 
called "liberalists," who profess respect for 
the Scriptures, and for the Founder of 
Christianity as the wisest and best of men, 
can not with any consistency take such 
2 



18 Miracles. 

ground, although the necessities of their 
prior and chief assumption compel them to 
do it. 

This rejection of the testimony concern- 
ing the supernatural birth is sometimes 
rated among the new things brought to light 
by late discoveries, or as resulting from the 
advanced thought of our day, which has 
just reached the point of freedom from the 
bondage of supernaturalism and subserv- 
iency to myths and legends. But it is in 
fact an old, old heresy, the reproduction of 
Socinianism, with scarcely the semblance of 
new clothing with which to cover its ancient 
deformities. It may be 'liberalism," but it 
can not be Christianity. Although labeled 
all over with Scripture names and phrases, 
its kinship and fellowship must be with the 
enemies of the cross of Christ, and, as will 
appear later, its legitimate outcome is the 
repudiation of the Son of Mary as an open 



Miracles. 19 

fraud. It is the sheerest folly to reject 
the Scriptural account of the miracles of 
Christ — those attributed to him — and yet to 
speak respectfully of him and of his apostles 
who wrote or inspired the record of his say- 
ings and doings. If their testimony can not 
be received as to facts, or concerning the 
events daily occurring in his life and in their 
own lives, much less can it be relied upon 
when it purports to give account of his 
parables, addresses, and teachings in relation 
to the mysteries of God's purposes and 
works. Until one is ready to go to the ex- 
tent of denouncing the entire record as the 
fabrication of designing men, there is 
neither reason nor propriety in rejecting 
part of it, while holding respect for the par- 
ties to its production. It is all honest, or 
it is all dishonest. 

What, then, is the real attitude of the 
skeptic with regard to the New Tesament 



20 Miracles. 

record ? An accurate portrayal would bring 
us a picture full of contradictions, of 
The Attitude grotesque and absurd posturings, 
of skeptics, deeply colored with the most re- 
pulsive bigotries. Eationalists and "liberal- 
ists" join hands in cherishing doubts and in 
casting opprobrium upon belief in the super- 
natural; but beyond this their harmony dis- 
appears. All manner of fantastic conjec- 
tures take the place of sober investigation, 
while abounding credulity usurps the sphere 
of intelligent faith. Loosened from loyalty 
to a Divine personality, they plunge into the 
wildest speculations, forgetting, apparently, 
that they are bound to believe something of 
a positive character, as well as those who 
receive the record as an authoritative revela- 
tion from God. It is not enough that they 
disbelieve in miracles; they must believe in 
something that excludes miracles. It is not 
enough that they reject the evidences that 



MlKACLES. 21 

Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living 
God; they must believe he was human, with- 
out any other divinity than such as they 
attribute to all men, and that he was a vic- 
tim of deception, or a willful deceiver. Their 
negative posture in unbelief must carry with 
it some kind of positive belief with regard 
to the origin of the world, and the sources 
and efficiency of the laws of nature, and the 
forces which hold the universe in its course 
through the ages. Practically they at once 
admit and deny the credibility of the gospel 
records, admitting them with full confidence 
for some purposes, and denying them for 
others. Most of them aver that Jesus of 
Nazareth was a good man, and yet a de- 
ceiver; that he was the embodiment of the 
highest human wisdom, and yet a deluded 
fanatic; that he was modest, sincere, and 
humble, and yet egotistical, pretentious, and 
self-asserting to the last degree. The fact 



22 MlEACLES. 

is that to all classes of doubters, of every 
type and grade, he is to-day, as of old, the 
stumbling-block and foolishness. All things 
pertaining to faith hinge on the view taken 
of him who is the Founder of the Church, 
the subject and substance of the gospel, the 
Alpha and Omega of the scheme of human 
redemption. What he was in himself is and 
must be determinative of what he was to 
the universe, and especially of his relation 
to humanity, and of the works proper to 
reveal him to the intelligent apprehension 
of those with whom he came in contact. If 
he himself was superhuman, it is not strange 
that supernatural works attended him and 
attested his words. This is the last analysis, 
and by it faith in Christianity and in 
miracles must stand or fall. 

Think not that we venture too much in 
placing such stress on the evidences of his 
divinity. The risk is great, but it is here. 



MlKACLES. 23 

There is no evading it. He was all that 
he claimed to be, and all that the gospel 
claims for him, or he was not. We accept 
this claim, or we reject it. There is no 
middle ground. The most inconsistent of 
men are they who deny his divinity, and yet 
regard him as the ideal man of virtue and 
wisdom. 

Nor do we perpetrate the fallacy of argu- 
ing in a circle, proving his divinity by his 
miracles, and his miracles by his divinity; 
but, depending on competent and adequate 
testimony for the facts in the record of his 
life, including his miracles and his teach- 
ing, we discover that his mighty works are 
not out of harmony with his nature, and 
that these being attested to us as the product 
of his power, are not to be rejected or 
treated as if affirmed to be the result of 
ordinary human agency or the product of 
natural law. Miraculous deeds flow from 



24 MlEACLES. 

such a source with less wonder to us than 
from a man of our own type, and when we 
study them it is necessary to apply rules 
and tests suited to the higher order of 
being. Then, discovering that his works are 
above the capacity of human power, we 
rationally conclude that he who performed 
them is superhuman. Thus his works tes- 
tify of him that his claim to affiliation with 
God is well founded, and with this fact at- 
tested we no longer hesitate to accord to 
him the divinity which makes miracles pos- 
sible and credible. How different this atti- 
tude from that of the skeptic, and especially 
that of the "liberalist I" 

It has been a question, through all the 

conflicts of faith and unbelief, as to whether 

Human an y human testimony is capable 

Testimony. £ satisfying the demands of 

reason as to events so extraordinary as 

miracles. It is to the interest of unbelief 



MlEACLES. 25 

to assume the negative on this point, as 
it does in almost every question, denying 
and denying, and calling for proofs, while 
persistently refusing to accept any proof 
tendered as at all competent or satisfying. 
The habit of doubting and denying grows 
with use, and becomes a sort of nature in 
men who cherish it, rendering it next to 
impossible to give fair play to reason in 
weighing testimony that tends to establish 
an unwelcome fact or an undesired propo- 
sition. Thus, by an easily explainable 
process, the habitual doubter becomes a prey 
to his extreme cautiousness, hampering the 
faculty which he aims to cultivate, and sub- 
jects reason to prejudice, instead of en- 
throning it as the guide of his life. It is a 
familiar saying that it is easy to believe 
what one wishes to believe. There is, doubt- 
less, some truth in this; but there is much 
more force in the principle when applied 



26 Miracles. 

the other way — that is, that it is hard 
to believe what one does not wish to be- 
lieve. This palpable fact has given rise to 
that other saying, "Convince a man against 
his will," etc. 

Aside from all this, it is not denied that 
the demands of reason are variable in dif- 
ferent individuals, so that what will satisfy 
one and command ready assent, will fall far 
short of proving satisfactory to another. 
There are innate differences in men in this 
respect, as in almost everything relating to 
the mind, the dispositions, and the will. All 
these forces, idiosyncracies, and inclinations 
come into exercise in connection with the 
activities of the reason in determining the 
value of testimony, especially where the emo- 
tions and passions are to be affected by the 
conclusion. One man has a vivid imagina- 
tion, with a predisposition to the marvelous, 
while another is cold, unimpressible, scarcely 



MlKACLES, 27 

at all susceptible to influences from the 
supersensuous; and still another is stolid, 
sensual, and greatly lacking in the power 
of spiritual perception. Plainly it is easier 
for some men to believe in miracles than 
it is for others, as some men more easily 
apprehend moral truth, and more readily 
yield to its sway, than do others. In view 
of this diversity of human gifts and capa- 
bilities, it is scarcely other than a truism 
to allege that it is easier for some men to 
be saved than it is for others. It is there- 
fore impossible to fix upon any standard, 
or grade, or character of testimony that is 
indispensable in all cases, or that should be 
deemed adequate for all persons and under 
all circumstances. As in everything relat- 
ing to the building up of human character, 
there comes a point where each one must 
exercise the ultimate power of his selfhood, 
and decide what shall be the controlling 



28 Miracles. 

motive of his life, so in the matter of be- 
lief there is necessity that every man's 
reason and conscience shall act independ- 
ently in deciding as to the degree of pre- 
ponderance of testimony required in de- 
termining whether to receive or reject what 
purports to be the truth of God. In other 
words, a forced decision, if not impossible 
in itself, is out of harmony with that in- 
vincible freedom which is the highest en- 
dowment of our nature, the essential of 
virtue and vice in personal character, and 
the basis of responsibility. Whether we 
agree to it or not, or whether we compre- 
hend in our consciousness or not the stand- 
ard governing our decisions, human testi- 
mony is a chief factor in every step of our 
advancement in knowledge, and in all the 
progress we make in science and in achieve- 
ment. It controls us in the highest con- 
cerns of this life, in business, in social re- 



MlKACLES. 29 

lations, and in much that makes for char- 
acter; and unless we utterly mistake the 
bearings of conduct and character on the 
great hereafter, the influence of human tes- 
timony will enter largely into the determina- 
tion of our destiny forever. We would 
neither magnify nor disparage its power in 
matters of faith, but we must accord to it 
the office it holds of necessity, and certainly 
we can do nothing less than recognize its 
agency and work where it becomes, as it 
so often does, the only possible channel for 
transmitting to us, and from us to others, 
the highest forms of knowledge which intel^ 
lect, reason, or conscience can receive or 
impart. 

To decry human testimony is a favorite 
exercise with those who reject the super- 
natural in the Scriptures, and deny the 
miracles therein recorded. They seem to 
emphasize deliberately what the psalmist ut- 



30 MlEACLES. 

tered in haste as an impulsive outburst of 

disgust when things went badly. It is well 

The for us not to imitate their ex- 

Celebrated 

Argument, ample or spirit, but to treat 
their difficulties with candor. They feel the 
force of the reasoning of unbelievers of a 
former generation, and whatever of force 
there is in it must be met with all sober- 
ness. It is not enough that it has been 
answered again and again, for so long as 
it is reiterated as something newly discov- 
ered, it will be necessary to look it in the 
face as if never seen before. Hume put 
the argument against miracles into the 
shape which has been the standard with 
rationalists ever since his day, and the later 
efforts of skeptics have not improved it. 

It assumes to balance human experience 
against human testimony, always to the dis- 
advantage of human testimony. If the 
balancing could be done fairly, with all the 



Miracles. 31 

elements in the scales, there might be some- 
thing of value in the process, but the con- 
ditions for a complete test are A FaJse 
impossible. All the experiences Balance. 
and observations should be obtained under 
the same circumstances in order to a right- 
ful comparison; but as this is out of the 
question, the result is that we are only 
called to consider the experience of persons 
not present to witness alleged phenomena, 
set over against the experience of those who 
were present, and who testify positively and 
intelligently as to what they saw and heard. 
The assumed balance of experience against 
testimony is such only in name. 

To those who witnessed the alleged 
miracles of the New Testament, the senses 
of the body and mind, the faculties of reason 
and judgment, performed the office which 
human testimony performs for us. As the 
observed phenomena impressed the reason of 



32 Miracles. 

the living witnesses through the senses, so 
the testimony which comes to us through 
human agency addresses itself to the under- 
standing, appeals to reason, and sways the 
judgment, according to our apprehension of 
the facts, showing that the materials of faith 
in us differ less widely from those which 
determined the minds of actual witnesses 
than we ordinarily suppose. In both cases 
faith is founded upon experience, in the one 
case the experience being from personal ob- 
servation, while in the other it is from tes- 
timony which can be studied and weighed, 
and so tested as to cause its voice to ap- 
proach the certainty which we rightfully at- 
tach to the testimony of our senses. We 
lose nothing by conceding that we depend 
on human testimony for our knowledge of 
miracles wrought before our day. Conced- 
ing this, we can go further, and concede also 
that there is for us no personal observation 



Miracles. 33 

or experience of contact with external things 
that is capable of confirming the human 
testimony on which we depend, for the 
reason that we can have no experience of 
any kind with regard to things or events 
before we were born. But what is true of 
us in this regard, is equally true of our 
neighbors. Those who deny the miracles of 
the New Testament have no more experience 
to sustain their denial than we have to sus- 
tain our faith. We therefore hold that 
present human experience is just as in- 
capable of testifying against miracles as for 
them. The only experience that can have 
any evidential value for us is our own in- 
dividual experience, and since that is neces- 
sarily restricted to the range of our per- 
sonal consciousness, it can shed no light on 
the question of fact raised by the allegation 
of miracles in a former generation. 
If it be alleged, as it has been with great 
3 



34 Miracles. 

confidence, that our experience has to do 
with human testimony, and proves that it 
is variable and uncertain, it is enough to 
reply that experience does not prove that 
all human testimony is variable and uncer- 
tain, but, on the contrary, it proves that 
on matters of the greatest interest human 
testimony is reliable, and that by far the 
greater part of the recorded testimony of 
men in public positions is trustworthy in a 
very high degree. Those who speak for the 
public and for future generations are apt 
to speak substantial truth, unless some 
powerful motive for falsification presses 
upon them; and this is true also of those 
who are not specially constrained to such a 
course by religious convictions. Self-respect 
and proper regard for the good opinion of 
others will ordinarly induce men of average 
morality to adhere to the truth, at least in 
all utterances likely to be subjected to close 



Miracles. 35 

scrutiny by other people. Even such as may 
lack something in the way of the strictest 
integrity do not willingly run into the 
liability of public exposure and contradic- 
tion. It is therefore safe and proper in all 
cases to hold him who challenges the 
veracity of a witness responsible for making 
good his accusations, putting upon him the 
burden of proof. In another respect also 
does our experience with human testimony 
fall short of making out the case of the 
unbeliever. While it fails to prove all such 
testimony untrustworthy, it fails signally 
in showing the impossibility of discriminat- 
ing between the true and the false, and of 
determining, by the application of proper 
tests, that which may be received with con- 
fidence, and that which is doubtful. In this 
lies our safety. The public is not easily de- 
ceived for any great length of time by the 
fabrications of designing men, and in noth- 



36 MlKACLES. 

ing has there ever been greater alertness 
than in the presence of attempts to impose 
upon the people a new religion in opposition 
to the traditional faith. It was this con- 
servativeness that made the progress of the 
gospel so slow among the Jewish people, 
even with the overwhelming testimonies it 
presented when it could gain a hearing. 
That it made headway at all under existing 
conditions is evidence that it had proofs of 
its divinity at hand that could not be gain- 
said. 

In still another respect is this celebrated 
argument from the balancing of experience 
against human testimony at fault. Its sup- 
posed strength is in asserting that, while 
our experience proves that human testimony 
is sometimes uncertain, it also proves that 
the course of nature is uniform and unin- 
terrupted ; and that therefore our experience 
is wholly against the occurrence of miracles. 



MlKACLES. 37 

The fact is that our experience on the sub- 
ject of miracles is entirely negative. It has 
no testimony to give for or against them. 
It is not a factor in the discussion at all. 
The real question is not as to the uniformity 
of the course of nature in our day or at 
any other time, but as to alleged exceptions 
to this uniformity during the existence of 
a generation long since gone. It is not pos- 
sible for the experience of one generation 
to prove anything concerning the experience 
of a former generation with regard to ex- 
ceptions to the uniformity of the course of 
nature. If the men of a preceding genera- 
tion testify to their experience of exceptions 
to the uniformity of the course of nature 
in their day, there is no possibility of the 
experience of the men of a later generation 
contradicting that testimony. It is not a 
case of experience against experience, nor 
of the experience of many against that of a 



38 Miracles. 

few, but it is a case of alleged experience 
on one side against the utter absence of 
experience on the other side. In other 
words, it is a plain question of testimony 
to be decided by the competency and credibil- 
ity of the witnesses, and by the possible 
presence of agencies sufficient to make the 
alleged exceptions to the course of nature 
possible. That the course of nature is or- 
dinarily uniform is admitted on all sides, but 
to assume, as does the denier of miracles, 
that no exception to this uniformity has 
ever occurred, is to assume the point in dis- 
pute — to beg the question — besides affirm- 
ing that which nothing short of the uni- 
versal experience of all generations of men 
can adequately attest. 

In connection with this matter of the uni- 
formity of the course of nature, and before 
considering further the credibility of human 
testimony, let us think of the oft-repeated 



MlEACLES. 39 

allegations that learning has discarded 
miracles, and that science has demonstrated 
their impossibility. These asser- Learning and 
tions seem to cover the whole Science. 
ground, and render the situation serious. 
When flippantly repeated, as they often are, 
they remind us of a class which an apostle 
had before his thought when he said, "Their 
mouth speaketh great swelling words" — for 
to those who are charmed by the sound of 
words, without considering their source or 
testing their meaning, these great swelling 
words probably suggest the end of contro- 
versy as well as the overthrow of faith. Be- 
loved, "let not your heart be troubled!" 
Looking into a muddy pool, one can imagine 
the water deep because he can not see the 
bottom. Is it true that learning has dis- 
carded miracles? When and where has it 
done this? So serious a thing should be 
known. Language is flexible, and sometimes 



40 Miracles. 

the terms are changed without a change of 
meaning, and then we meet the assertion 
that scholarship is against miracles ! Verily, 
again, and what is scholarship apart from 
the person who possesses learning? Where 
do we find this scholarship, and where its 
authoritative pronouncement? Is its voice 
a unit in discarding miracles ? Is there even 
a preponderance of the scholarship and 
learning of the world against the record of 
miracles, and against the supernatural in 
religion? We do not accept the assertion. 
It can not be accepted by any one whose 
intelligence is not overborne by inordinate 
self-consciousness. The voice of learning is 
divided on the subject. There have been 
men of high scholarship on the side of un- 
belief from the beginning. Some are in- 
fidels in spite of their learning. They do 
not like to retain God in their knowledge. 
A cultured intellect is no more a guarantee 



MlKACLES. 41 

of personal faith than it is of purity of 
heart. Yet there is no hazard in claiming 
that the completest scholarship of the age 
accepts miracles, and sustains the evidences 
of a supernatural element in Christianity 
and in the Bihle. It does this particularly 
with reference to the person of the Founder 
of Christianity. It "believes in the Son of 
God, in his incarnation, crucifixion, and 
resurrection. The Christian scholarship of 
the world takes no second place in any ag- 
gregation of learning on the earth. The 
appeal is to facts. 

Nor is there any ground at all for the 
other assertion — that science has demon- 
strated the impossibility of miracles. It is 
scarcely possible to conceive of a bolder 
assumption, or of one of greater arrogance. 
How fluently men speak of the demonstra- 
tions of science ! "Great swelling words," 
again. Science is a delightful thing. Within 



42 MlEACLES. 

its sphere it has a divine mission. What 
science demonstrates is true beyond ques- 
tion. No Christian cares to dispute this. 
But we must inquire a little more closely. 
What is science ? What is its sphere ? What 
does it know of God? What of his power? 
When and where has it demonstrated that 
miracles are impossible ? Where does it find 
a limit for the Almighty ? What science has 
done this ? Has it been done by physical or 
by metaphysical science? Generalizations 
are not sufficient. The aid of some devotee 
of rationalism is needed at this point. 
Battling words prove nothing unless applied. 
Let us come down to particulars. Of neces- 
sity there are many sciences, and each one 
has principles of its own, as well as its own 
sphere, and each must be studied in the 
light of its own laws and limitations. We 
can not learn astronomy by studying the laws 
and facts of chemistry. We can not become 



MlKACLES. 43 

mathematicians by studying geology. We 
can not learn medicine by studying law. 
Neither can we learn anything about mira- 
cles by pondering the forces of nature. 
If the whole system of nature were com- 
prehended, and a science found complete 
enough to cover every part of it, even the 
minutest, it would still be within its domain, 
as law touches and pervades all being, all 
life, all substance, and all phenomena of 
every class and type belonging to nature; 
and yet it would not reach the sphere of 
miracles, nor gain a point where it could 
stand and give any testimony as to the pos- 
sibility or impossibility of miracles. Its only 
proper attitude towards miracles is profound 
silence. A science of miracles is an utter 
impossibility. Then what mean these 
boasted demonstrations of science? Has 
astronomy proven that a man sent from 
God, clothed with Divine power, could 



44 Miracles. 

never open the eyes of the blind? Has 
geology demonstrated that Jesus could not 
walk on the water? Have late discoveries 
in electricity or chemistry proven beyond 
question that the Man of Nazareth was 
unable to heal a leper by a word or a touch ? 
Has the psychologist analyzed the ultimate 
powers of the soul of Jesus? Then, again 
we ask, what has any science done in the 
way of demonstrating that miracles are im- 
possible ? 

Let us anticipate the answer. It will not 

be specific, but general and slightly vague, 

Uniformity °f necessity. The rationalist 

of Nature. wiU teU ug that the courge of 

nature is uniform — that natural law works 
steadily and persistently and invariably, 
and that it is resistless in its sphere, and 
incapable of fluctuations or exceptions. 
Very good, so far; and we shall make no 
denial — but what then? Simply this — that 



MlEAOLES. 45 

natural law can work no miracles. This is 
the scope and the end of the demonstra- 
tions of science. It can prove this and 
nothing more. It is therefore settled that 
natural law can work no miracles. But who 
ever said it could? Who ever charged 
miracles to the account of natural law? 

The uniformity of the course of nature 
is a stupendous fact. Natural law works 
steadily and persistently. Gravitation 
abides. The sun shines as ever. The moon 
and stars march onward in their courses. 
The earth revolves on its axis, the seasons 
come in turn, the tides ebb and now, and all 
things continue as they were from the be- 
ginning. This is what is meant by the sys- 
tem of nature, and the course of nature, 
and in this great system no provision is 
made for interruptions, as no laws or forces 
are ordained in nature for the purpose of 
working miracles. What then? Miracles 



46 Miracles. 

are not natural events, and they can not 
occur unless God interpose and produce 
them by his own power. 

This leads us to a higher realm and to 
a broader view. Where is the sphere of 
Sphere of miracles, and what is their 
Miracles. na ture and their end? Where 
shall we look for them, and for the agencies 
necessary to bring them to pass? Is there 
anything above and beyond the system of 
nature of which we have spoken, and which 
is governed by natural law? Is there a 
God distinct from the universe? Is there 
a Creator and upholder of all things, or is 
nature self -created and self-sustained? A 
universe with God is one thing, and a uni- 
verse without God is quite another thing. 
The difference is not worldwide merely, 
but infinite. Which shall we choose? If 
nature is all, the choice is made. God is 
excluded. The forces of nature are su- 



MlEAOLES. 47 

preme, as there is neither person nor power 
to interrupt their course, or to interfere to 
produce results that do not inevitably flow 
from their operation. In such a world 
miracles are impossible. This is the uni- 
verse of the rationalist and of the so-called 
"liberalist," whether either acknowledges 
it or not. With their view of the supremacy 
of natural law, Atheism and Agnosticism 
are the highest wisdom — the only legitimate 
outcome of the denial of the supernatural 
and of the possibility of miracles. Neither 
rationalism nor liberalism will concede this, 
but the inexorable necessities of logical 
thought compel the conclusion. 

What can be more illogical than for a 
man to stand up in the presence of intelli- 
gent people, and say with or without an air 
of superior wisdom, iC l believe in a personal 
God, and yet I believe miracles are impos- 
sible?" What a combination is this! A 



48 Miracles. 

personal God unable to perform a miracle! 
A God who made a world which he can not 
control! A God who ordained laws which 
have gone beyond his power! Is this the 
culmination of rationalistic wisdom? Such 
is not the God of the Christian, nor the God 
of the older philosophical theism. If God 
is personal, and not identical with the uni- 
verse, nor bound and fettered by its laws 
to abject helplessness, as with Pantheism, 
then he is free, independent, eternal, and 
self-existent, with infinite power and wis- 
dom; and then, also, there is a realm of 
rational existence above the universe of 
matter and natural law, a spiritual domain 
in which are possibilities unknown to science, 
and phenomena unrevealable through the 
laws that control the system of nature. The 
forces of this higher world, this supermun- 
dane sphere, and the power and wisdom of 
the infinite God, must be taken into the 



Miracles. 49 

account, and his immanence, and the over- 
lappings of the natural by the supernatural, 
must be considered in determining the ques- 
tion of the possibility of miracles. Of 
course, neither science nor human reason can 
comprehend this higher universe, and there- 
fore neither the one nor the other can give 
any authoritative utterance on the subject of 
events traceable to the direct agency of God. 
If miracles belong to this higher sphere in 
their origin and in the forces producing 
them, and touch the world of nature only 
in their manifestations and results, their 
study necessarily carries us beyond thb 
range of science, and into realm of faith — 
faith not blind but rational, guided by the 
revelations of God in effects tangible to 
our senses, seen and felt in the natural 
world, but coming from causes found only 
in the supernatural world. Neither science 
nor human learning alone can penetrate the 
4 



50 MlEACLES. 

hidden mysteries of that ineffable brightness 
in which only pure spirits live in fellowship 
with the God of glory and power. 

We are now ready for the right concep- 
tion of miracles. This we must have, and 
Right having it we obviate the most 

Conception 

of Miracles, formidable difficulties that ob- 
trude in the pathway of our study. Miracles 
are not natural events, and therefore they 
are not dependent on natural laws, nor on 
any of the forces with which science has to 
do. Natural possibilities need not be con- 
sidered in relation to them, as they are not 
the product of natural forces, and can 
neither be hindered nor disproved by them, 
nor by any science that is limited to the 
sphere of their operations. If we had a 
science capable of taking into its scope and 
vision the entire range of the supernatural, 
and of searching out God to perfection, so 
as to disclose the hidings of his power, and 



Miracles. 51 

the limitations of his love, such a science 
might speak with the voice of authority, 
and explain to us intelligently whatever 
hindrances there are, if any exist, in the 
way of the manifestation of miracles; but 
there is no such science, and no such voice 
will ever greet our ears however eagerly 
we may listen to hear it. We study miracles 
in the light of the supernatural, as we study 
natural events in the light of science. 
How then shall we define them? This is 
not an easy task. They are effects of a 
cause we can neither trace nor comprehend. 
A definition of an effect ought to indicate 
somewhat of the nature of the event, and 
also convey some idea of the process of its 
occurrence ; but since in miracles the process 
is unrevealed and unknown, a complete or 
perfect definition is out of the question. 

It may not be wise to speak of miracles 
as violations of the laws of nature. They 



52 MlEACLES. 

may or may not be such in fact, but so far 
as we can know there is no element of trans- 
gression in them. Nor is it 

Definitions, f . ,_ 

best to speak of them as con- 
tradictions of law. Only that is to be 
contradicted which is erroneous or false; 
but the laws of nature are all true — true 
to nature and true to the ends and pur- 
poses of their ordination. Miracles are 
effects above the laws into whose domain 
they come, although they may be in perfect 
keeping with some higher law which rules 
in the supernatural world, and according 
to which the power of God proceeds when 
for great moral ends he touches the forces 
of the natural world to produce miraculous 
results. In some way the laws of nature 
are subordinated to the power which causes 
miracles, and whether they are suspended, 
or interrupted, or overruled, or overcome 
by the intervention of a superior law, the 



Miracles. 53 

result is substantially the same. The 
agency of God in them is the great fact, 
and whether in effecting them he employs 
second causes or not, and whether he ob- 
serves a rule or method fixed in his own 
mind or not, is indifferent to us, so that 
his relation is such that he himself is the 
cause and the miracle the effect. A miracle 
is therefore the effect of a Divine act, 
wrought with or without the employment 
of instrumentalities in themselves inad- 
equate, and with or without the interven- 
tion of a law superior to the one contra- 
vened. 

Whether we succeed in defining miracles 
satisfactorily to ourselves or not, there are 
certain characteristics necessary Necessary 

Character- 
to distinguish them as miracles, istics. 

and also to assure us of their adaptation 

to the end for which they were wrought. 

There is in every one of them a greater 



54 Miracles. 

or less departure from or interruption of 
the course of nature. This is necessary 
to make it clear to us that they are from 
God. This interruption of the course of 
nature is the serious aspect and calls for 
careful guarding. It is scarcely possible 
to speak of such an interruption without 
suggesting what would be in fact an ex- 
aggeration; for the interruption intended 
is not such as impresses itself on the popu- 
lar thought when the phraseology is used. 
Having conceived of the course of nature 
as a system so immense, so permanent, so 
harmonious, and so beautiful and beneficent 
in its onward movements, the thought of 
an interruption to it at once takes on pro- 
portions of exceeding vastness, and almost 
infinite consequences. But the language 
does not mean that the whole system of 
nature is disturbed — that the sun, moon, 
and stars are thrown out of their courses, 



MlKACLES. 55 

or that the law of gravitation is either 
reversed or suspended. The law contra- 
vened when a miracle occurs may be the 
law of health or life in an individual, or 
the law of decay under which disease makes 
inroads upon the vitality of the person; 
or it may be the law of attraction or grav- 
itation in its application to a person or 
a local object, with results so limited that 
the interruption, while positive and impos- 
sible without Divine agency, will have no 
effect whatsoever on other persons or 
things, or on the system of nature as a 
system. The miracle is not therefore to be 
thought of as something alarming, or as 
necessarily so great as to send a shock 
throughout the universe. A deaf man 
cured, or a blind man given his sight, or 
a leper cleansed, or a dead man restored to 
life, is an interruption to the course of 
nature, a veritable miracle, and as clearly 



56 MlEACLES. 

a manifestation of God's agency as would 
be the putting out of the light of the sun 
or the turning of the moon into blood. 

Among the objections to miracles on the 
ground that they imply interruptions to the 
course of nature, and the one used as fre- 
quently and with as much effect as any 
other, is the assumption that such inter- 
ruptions could only be justified on the 
supposition that there were defects in the 
system which could only be remedied in 
this way. All such assumptions are vain 
and sophistical, as the purpose of the in- 
terruptions — that is, of the miracles — is 
always outside of the system, and looks 
not to the betterment of the laws of nature, 
but to the comfort and blessing of the 
subjects or witnesses of the miracles. This 
objection is altogether too superficial to 
be impressive. It is an appeal to ignorance. 
If the laws of nature were imperfect or 



Miracles. 57 

variable the lesson of their interruption 
would be lost. It is their perfection that 
renders miracles proper and necessary as 
means to the ends proposed. 

Miracles, in order to answer their pur- 
pose, must be publicly wrought, and of 
such tangible character as to remove all 
suspicion of deception. If privacy be ob- 
served or arranged for in connection with 
them, or only selected witnesses allowed 
to be present, the impossibility of collusion 
and fraud will not be as obvious as is neces- 
sary to command the confidence of all 
classes of people. They must be able to 
endure the most rigid scrutiny, not only 
as to the fact of their occurrence under 
the conditions alleged, but as to their 
nature, exhibiting phenomena to be ob- 
served and inspected by the senses, and to 
stand any reasonable test that the inquirer 
may wish to apply. 



58 MlKACLES. 

Another characteristic of miracles should 
be freedom from lightness or ostentation, 
not looking to spectacular effect, but to 
beneficent and worthy ends. Some such 
as do not meet this requirement have been 
attributed to our Lord in the Apocryphal 
Gospels, and are justly rated as myths and 
legends, unworthy of the high mission that 
brought him into the world. The only 
useful purpose served by these spurious 
records of false miracles is found in the 
contrast they afford with those reported in 
the New Testament. They may also be 
used as illustrations of the style and achieve- 
ments of men who set out to gather legends 
and construct myths. As compared with 
these, the simplicity, the dignity, and the 
manifest honesty of the records of the evan- 
gelists become impressive, lifting us at once 
into an atmosphere of sincerity and purity. 

There ought also to be variety in miracles 



MlEACLES. 59 

intended to substantiate the claim to a di- 
vine commission on the part of him who 
works them. Wonders of a single sort, such 
as healing a particular kind of disease, 
would not be thoroughly satisfying. They 
might astound and excite amazement, but 
they would do nothing more than reveal 
their author as a specialist of extraordinary 
character. But the miracles attributed to 
Jesus meet this demand completely. They 
were numerous, and of almost every imagi- 
nable description. They touched nearly every 
department of nature. The winds and the 
waves were affected and shown to be sub- 
ject to the control of his word. Diseases 
of every kind yielded to his sway. The 
deadened eyes and ears of men, and the dis- 
ordered faculties of the mind, responded to 
his command, and resumed normal con- 
ditions without delay or failure. Even the 
unfruitful fig-tree declared his power, and 



60 Miracles. 

evil spirits fled from the majesty of his pres- 
ence. So numerous and varied were his won- 
derful works that John's hyperbole appears 
the appropriate expression of the astonish- 
ment created by the perception of the va- 
riety and greatness of what he did. It was 
another way of saying that they could not 
be written up in full, and that it was not 
necessary that they should be. Those de- 
scribed were only examples or samples of 
what were performed. 

It should be remarked also that for the 
purposes intended in the display of miracle- 
working power, there should be no pecuniary 
or other temporal gain or advantage accru- 
ing to the parties interested in the ex- 
hibition of that power. Magicians, sooth- 
sayers, diviners, and pretenders of various 
kinds played upon the credulity of the peo- 
ple, and made large gains. Trickery is al- 
ways sordid. Greed for money hampers the 



MlEACLES. 61 

influence of any reformer, and the mer- 
cenary spirit betrays its possessor into lines 
of conduct out of harmony with the law of 
love. Nothing of the kind was found in 
the life of Jesus Christ or his disciples. No 
miracle was wrought for pay. Neither 
worldly honors nor emoluments figured at 
all in that circle. Unselfishness and charity 
abounded. Treasures in heaven were placed 
above all the glitter of earth. 

The factors necessary to miracles are few 
and simple. A supreme power, a supreme 
will, and a moral reason, are 

. Factors. 

quite sufficient. Given these, 
and miracles are possible and probable. Any 
science or argument that overlooks these 
factors misses the mark, and appears only 
as an intruder in this discussion, with no 
voice that reason is bound to respect. A 
science without a God of infinite power has 
no place for miracles, has no use for them, 



62 Miracles. 

sees no reason why they should occur, and 
has no testimony to give either for or against 
them as possibilities or facts. "All things 
are possible with God," is a statement of 
deep and broad significance. If he made 
the world and ordained its laws, and still 
sits upon the throne and wields the forces 
which proceed from his fullness, he is able 
to touch any spring in the line of causation 
that may be necessary to bring fire from 
heaven, or sight to the blind, or healing to 
the leper, or food to the famishing, or life 
to the dead, or comfort to the sorrowing, 
or calm to the storm-driven waves of the 
sea, or peace to the agitated soul. 

It is exactly upon this ground that Jesus 
of Nazareth put all miraculous interpo- 
sitions. When confronted by the Saddu- 
cees with their rationalistic difficulties, with- 
out entering into an elaborate exposition 
of his views, or any analysis of their 



Miracles. 63 

troubles, or disquisition upon the laws and 
forces of nature, he simply said: "Ye do 
therefore err, not knowing the Scriptures, 
neither the power of God." This answer 
covers every objection to the possibility of 
miracles that has ever been brought in the 
name of any science or any philosophy, in 
ancient or modern times, and stands as the 
perpetual rebuke of skeptics and rational- 
ists of every grade and type. "The power 
of God!" This is the prime agency. "Why 
should it be thought a thing incredible that 
God should raise the dead?" Why limit 
God? The proposition has been submitted 
and has never been controverted, that it is 
impossible to frame an objection to miracles 
and clothe it in human language, that does 
not impose a limit on the power of God. 

This presentation, it is quite true, has 
little application to the Atheist or Pantheist, 
who denies God altogether, or makes nature 



64: Miracles. 

God, but to the "liberalise" who acknowl- 
edges a personal God apart from nature and 
a vain above nature, it applies with 
Distinction, tremendous pertinence and force. 
Indeed, almost every turn of the argument 
puts this class of objectors in the most un- 
happy light. They join with infidels in 
reasoning against miracles, and in ridicul- 
ing them and the record that reports them 
to us, and then part company from their 
associates, and take ground which is less 
tenable than that of open unbelief, because 
it acknowledges God and limits him, and 
compliments Jesus Christ as a good man and 
yet a deceiver, and eulogizes the apostles 
as being wise and great, and yet weaklings 
and fanatics. Of all men whose attitude 
towards God and his Son calls for com- 
miseration and censure at the same time, 
these "liberalists" occupy the first rank. 
Nor is their position less preposterous in 



MlEACLES. 65 

another respect. They profess to receive the 
teaching of Jesus and hold it in high es- 
teem, and yet deny his works — to believe 
he revealed God and divine truth, and yet 
wrought no miracles. They want no attesta- 
tion of his divine mission, if indeed he had 
any divine mission, and look for no proofs 
of supernatural power, because they deny 
him a supernatural birth and nature. 
Theirs is an extremely unique position. 
With them it is an easy thing to say in 
the same breath that the record of his say- 
ings is true, and the record of his doings 
false. Of course, this it not the way they 
put it, but it is an accurate representation 
of what they mean. With marked en- 
thusiasm they accept his ethical teaching, 
giving his words their natural meaning, and 
often insisting upon their most literal con- 
struction; and then they tell us that the 
record of his miracles is not to be taken 
5 



66 Miracles. 

as historical, but as made up of myths and 
legends. With them, Strauss, and Baur, and 
Kenan are evidently greater favorites than 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, especially 
on the subject of miracles. 

To the ordinary student it is as manifest 
as sunshine that the record of the words 
and works of the Son of man is a unit — 
that the proofs of his teaching and of his 
miracles are precisely the same. We con- 
fess to finding in the gospel the identical 
evidences of his divine personality and 
miracles that we find of his sinless life, and 
of his having spoken the parables attributed 
to him. If he was a man of ordinary birth 
and merely human endowments, the blame- 
less life he lived in the midst of a crooked 
and perverse generation was itself as really 
a miracle as was his act of turning water 
into wine, and as difficult to account for, 
without resort to supernatural influences, 



Miracles. 67 

as any of the wonderful works which 1 
rationalists pronounce mythical. His words 
and deeds stand or fall together. As he 
"spake as never man spake/' so he did "the 
works which no other man ever did." 

Whether Jesus Christ wrought miracles 
or not, it is next to impossible to resist the 
persuasion that he intended his disciples and 
the public to believe that he did. Was he 
deceived, or did he deceive others? How 
often this dilemma forces itself on our at- 
tention! Either horn involves serious re- 
sults, yet both have been taken by doubters, 
but only to increase the confusion and aug- 
ment the difficulties that beset the pathway 
of unbelief. It is a hard alternative for 
any one to be driven to choose between mak- 
ing the greatest Teacher of the ages a de- 
luded fanatic, on the one hand, or an im- 
postor, on the other hand; but when his 
divinity is denied there is no other choice 



68 Miracles. 

open. This is hard even for the self-re- 
specting infidel, but still harder for the 
"liberalists," who calls himself a Christian, 
and boasts of advanced thought, and delights 
in eulogizing the virtues of the person whom 
he thus involves, and in commending his 
ethics and example, while he rejects his 
miracles. Such a one speaks in glowing 
terms of the excellency of what he styles 
the "Christianity of Christ" — whatever that 
may mean — and holds it up for the admira- 
tion of that particular "scholarship" which 
distinguishes itself by honoring the record 
of what Christ taught, and dishonoring the 
record of what he did. He also presents 
this so-called "Christianity of Christ" — the 
ancient Socinian heresy — in sharp contrast 
with the orthodox Christianity which ac- 
cepts Jesus as the Son of God, the Worker 
of miracles, and the crucified and risen 
Savior of men. 



Miracles. 69 

Then what of the mythical theory, of 
which so much is said? What is its sig- 
nificance, and what its ground ? The Mythical 
It has been abroad for many Theory. 
years, and now and then gains a convert, 
but it develops nothing new, and certainly 
it contains little to satisfy an anxious mind, 
as the reasoning that supports it is vague 
and of a dreamy character, dealing largely 
in negatives and conjectures rather than in 
facts and positive data. In^whatever form 
it appears it questions the accuracy of the 
evangelical narratives, denies their authority 
as historical documents, and interprets their 
contents as a medley of fact, tradition, 
legend, and conjecture. It is necessary to 
its purpose that it find the Gospels written 
at a later date than is claimed for them, 
and some of them by other persons than 
those in whose names they stand. The field 
is too wide to be canvassed in this discourse, 



70 MlEACLES. 

but it is amply covered by works which dis- 
cuss the canon of Holy Scripture. 

Perhaps Strauss is the ablest advocate, 
and has done more to build up the theory 
that the narratives of the New Testament 
describe myths, and are composed largely of 
impossible legends, than any other man; yet 
in his later deliverances he modifies his 
original grounds, and follows Baur in his 
assumption that many of the reported 
miracles were invented by dogmatists for 
effect upon pending doctrinal controversies. 
These efforts to evade the historical in- 
tegrity of the Gospel records reveal the ani- 
mus of the opposition, and betray an utter 
disregard for scientific methods of search- 
ing for truth, with mind and heart open 
to welcome conclusions which flow from es- 
tablished premises, whether they accord 
with previous convictions or not. Without 
impugning personal motives in these things, 



MlEAOLES. 71 

we can not overlook the evidences of power- 
ful biases and predispositions of mind, which 
inevitably interfere with clearness of vision, 
and disastrously affect the logical consist- 
ency of those whose writings have become 
standards on the skeptical side in this dis- 
cussion. Kenan's evident fondness for 
legends as the key to the New Testament 
writings justly exposes him to the suspicion 
of bending his great gifts to the support 
of his theory with less respect for the sound- 
ness of his argument than his general 
probity would lead us to expect. His biases 
appear plainly on the surface of his rhap- 
sodies. Yet if these men would furnish us 
with the sources of the legends with which 
they assure us the Scriptures abound, we 
would feel obliged to examine them; or if 
they would point to any hint or intimation 
given by the Master himself that the things 
in the Old Testament which the people ac- 



72 MlKACLES. 

cepted as truth were either myths or legends, 
we would patiently pursue the investigation; 
and then, also, we would be prepared to 
listen with still greater patience to their 
allegations that the mighty works which 
Christ declared to be from the Father, and 
which he cited as proofs that he came forth 
from God, were myths, or tricks of leger- 
demain, or impositions or deceptions of any 
kind. 

The record of myths and legends is not 
apt to deal with names and dates and cir- 
cumstantial details, as does the record of 
the mighty deeds by which Jesus approved 
himself unto the people as the sent of God. 
Not a sign of the unreal appears in the ac- 
count of anything attributed to Christ, 
whether of word or work. There is no mark 
of ornamentation, nothing for rhetorical 
effect, no effort to explain difficulties, and 
nothing given to excite admiration, to please 



Miracles. 73 

the fancy, or to attract the attention of the 
curious. The simple truth satisfied every 
wish and purpose of the writer. 

It is said to be a hard thing to be a good 
falsifier. If one attempts such a thing in 
writing, he has need of a good memory and 
of much accurate information — otherwise he 
will fail in details or contradict some fact 
well known. Does any one imagine that a 
gatherer of myths and legends to be put 
forth as veritable history, would begin as 
Luke began the history of the manhood life 
of Jesus? Take the following passage: 
"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of 
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being gov- 
ernor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch 
of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch 
of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, 
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and 
Caiaphas being high priests, the word of God 
came unto John the son of Zacharias in the 



74 Miracles. 

wilderness." Does this sound like prepara- 
tion for the introduction of fables, myths, 
legends, or falsehoods of any kind? For 
an explanation of such carefulness, read 
Luke's own introductory note to this book. 
It suggests the most thorough preparation, 
a candid purpose, and a good reason for 
writing. With regard to the above passage 
an intelligent writer has said: "Here in one 
sentence are twenty historical, geographical, 
political, and genealogical references, every 
one of which we can confirm by references 
to secular historians. The enemies of the 
Lord have failed in their attempts to dis- 
prove one out of the hundreds of such state- 
ments in the New Testament." Evidently 
Luke, the writer of the latest of the Synop- 
tical Gospels, was not a recorder of tra- 
ditions, nor a reporter of myths, nor a 
fasifier of facts. He was an educated 
physician, the companion of Paul, an intelli- 



Miracles. 75 

gent observer, a capable and honest his- 
torian, and a faithful man of God. 

Mark was well instructed in all that re- 
lated to the life and work of Christ. He 
was the son of that Mary of Jerusalem at 
whose house the disciples were gathered in 
prayer-meeting at the time Peter was re- 
leased from prison by the angel of God; 
and when Barnabas and Paul had completed 
their business in that city, and returned to 
their widening field in the regions about 
Antioch, they took Mark with them, and 
from that onward he was with these two 
apostles, and with Peter, till he became 
thoroughly familiar with the history of the 
ministry of Christ as known by Peter and 
his fellow-workers in the kingdom. Why 
should he become the writer of legends and 
exaggerations ? 

Matthew, being one of the twelve, had full 
knowledge of the facts he incorporated into 



76 Miracles. 

the earliest biography of his Master and 
Lord. The only incident in his book that 
has the slightest appearance of legend is his 
account of the flight into Egypt to save the 
young child from the wrath of Herod. That 
was not mentioned by Luke, the only other 
one who wrote of the birth and childhood 
of Jesus, but Luke leaves ample room for 
the event when Matthew is rightly inter- 
preted. In all the record of miracles there 
is not a sign of an invented story, or of 
the rehearsal of overgrown reports. The 
Gospel written by John, the latest of all, 
has withstood the fiery ordeal of the most 
relentless criticism, and stands as the unique 
and unrivaled product of the mind and heart 
of the disciple whom Jesus loved; while the 
second book of Luke, the Acts of the 
Apostles, bears on every page the evidences 
of minute, accurate, and truthful history. 
With this glance at the record, we dismiss 



Miracles. 77 

the mythical and legendary theories as vain 
inventions, totally inadequate to account for 
the personality and works and words of 
Christ, and inconsistent with the character 
and circumstances and habits of those who 
founded Christianity, and gave it the marvel- 
ous success it achieved in its first century. 

The moral reason for miracles must have 
a word in passing. This is not found in the 
persons of those on whom they Moral 
were wrought, nor in the wit- Reason. 
nesses of them, nor in any local conditions 
existing at the time and in the places when 
and where they occurred. They were mostly 
of a beneficent character, bringing imme- 
diate good, but their moral purpose was of 
a wider scope — not circumscribed or limited 
by any environment of age or country. They 
were the credentials of his Messiahship, at- 
testing his divinity and his mission for all 
the generations of men. By them he was 



78 MlEACLES. 

declared to be the Son of God, the Anointed 
of the Father, the Savior of sinners, the 
Hope of the world. Such an attestation 
was their high purpose — a motive and moral 
reason sublime in itself, and worthy enough 
to warrant all the interruptions to the 
course of nature involved in them. 

Jesus himself thus explained their pur- 
pose: "I have greater witness than that of 
John; for the works which the Father gave 
me to finish, the same works that I do, 
bear witness of me, that the Father hath 
sent me." Again: "If I do not the works 
of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, 
though ye believe not me, believe the works, 
that ye may know and believe that the 
Father is in me and I in him." John, his 
beloved disciple, also declared this to be the 
purpose of the miracles: "And many other 
signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his 
disciples, which are not written in this book, 



Miracles. 79 

but these are written that ye might believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; 
and that believing ye might have life 
through his name." Whether it was be- 
cause of the rudeness of the age in which 
he appeared or not — although rudeness is 
not the descriptive term to apply to the 
period of the Caesars — the fact is beyond 
dispute that miraculous gifts were deemed 
necessary, as they were the most fitting to 
arrest the attention of the people, to eon- 
found opposers, and to convince the learned 
and thoughtful that he who came in the 
name of God was truly sent from God. 

The credibility of the testimony by which 
the miracles of the New Testament are as- 
sured to us as historical events credibility 
is of such character as not to be of w,tne s ses - 
questioned, when properly understood, by 
men whose intelligence and reason hold sway 
over passion and bigotry. We say this be- 



80 Miracles. 

cause it was given by men of such numbers 
and under such conditions as to preclude 
all motives for falsifying in that direction, 
and to include the highest possible motives 
for adhering to the truth, and accompanied 
by such acts of self-sacrifice in its behalf 
as to indicate the most inflexible integrity, 
and to reduce the probability of deception 
or fraud on their part to an absolute mini- 
mum, if not to a moral impossibility. The 
witnesses whose testimony makes the record 
were not all learned men, but they were men 
of good sense and common honesty, prac- 
tical and watchful, with ample opportunity 
to know what they were doing, ready to re- 
sent any attempted impositions, but not 
qualified to invent or circulate myths and 
legends as facts seen and known. The Gos- 
pel records made by them have been sub- 
jected to every possible test, and have come 
unscathed through the fiery ordeal. Infidel- 



MlKACLES. 81 

ity lias done its utmost to impeach their 
integrity. Their authorship, date, and un- 
corruptness have been assailed from every 
conceivable point of view, and with the skill 
and learning of high culture and the keen- 
est intellect, as well as with the virulence 
of passion and the bitterness of partisanship 
and bigotry; and yet not a link has been 
broken in the chain of testimony which 
brings them to us as veritable history. Cor- 
roborations of their essential averments are 
found in public documents of the times, and 
in the contemporaneous writings of others 
than Churchmen. Public institutions and 
ceremonies — the sacraments and the Lord's 
day — traceable to the origins they declare, 
stand as monumental demonstrations of 
their integrity, and challenge the world to 
overthrow their testimony. The acceptance 
of these records is neither presumption nor 
superstition, and, accepting them, the obli- 
6 



82 MlKACLES. 

gation comes to interpret them rationally, 
according to their spirit and intent. This 
requires that their contents be studied in 
whole and in detail, in the light of their 
times and circumstances, and in view of 
their scope and purpose. A wide field this, 
in which Christian scholarship has wrought 
results of highest value, in comparison with 
which the achievements of doubt sink into 
insignificance. 

Still the question recurs — since the evi- 
dential value of miracles was not to be re- 
corrobora- stricted to those who witnessed 

tlons of 

Testimony, them — as to whether they have 
been sufficiently attested to the generations 
following to command assent to them as 
historical realities, and to justify belief in 
their Author as the Christ, the Son of the 
living God. As we can not consistently ac- 
cept the testimony concerning the leading 
facts of his life and teaching, without also 



MlEACLES. 83 

accepting that concerning his miracles, his 
death, and his resurrection, we anxiously 
inquire whether there is not some way of 
securing corroboration of the written testi- 
mony of the evangelists that will give it 
the higher character of testimony approved 
of God? If God has ceased to speak to us 
in words, will he not speak to our hearts ? 
If the "canon" of formal revelation is closed, 
is there not open to each of us the privi- 
lege of an inward spiritual illumination — 
an experimental testing — which will con- 
firm in us the truth of the written Word? 
If so, then after all our faith "stands not 
in the wisdom of men, but in the power 
of God." Yerily, there is for us in this 
form testimony direct from God — testimony 
written not in books for the eyes of men, 
nor in tablets of stone, but in the depths 
of our personal consciousness, by the Spirit 
of God. Thus the Master's words have been 



84 Miracles. 

corroborated in human experiences, through 
the Christian centuries, times without num- 
ber: "If any man willeth to do his will, he 
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 
of God, or whether I speak of myself." Tak- 
ing Christ at his word, and making the di- 
vine will the supreme law of his life, the 
earnest soul finds springing up within him- 
self an inward assurance of the favor and 
love of God, which is as satisfying as the 
highest form of knowledge could be — for 
is it not such in fact? Jesus says, "Come 
unto me, and I will give you rest." The 
burdened soul comes and finds rest. Again, 
it is written, "He that hath the Son hath 
life," and when the penitent opens his heart 
trustingly to receive the Son, the pulsations 
of a new life thrill his soul with emotions 
of "joy unspeakable and full of glory." 
Again the Word saith, "He that believeth 



Miracles. 85 

in the Son of God hath the witness in him- 
self;" and to the believer the Spirit comes 
in answer to personal faith, and bears wit- 
ness to personal adoption into the family 
of God. "Hereby we do know that we know 
him, if we keep his commandments." "And 
hereby we know that he abideth in us, by 
the Spirit which he hath given us." We 
live under the dispensation of the Spirit, and 
while revelations may not come to us be- 
yond the contents of the Scriptures, the 
Spirit of God dwelling in us bears witness 
to the truth, takes the things of Christ and 
shows them unto us, giving infallible assur- 
ance of the divinity of our faith and of the 
open inspirations which are the heritage of 
believers forever. Here we rest. God is 
not absent, but revealed in Jesus Christ his 
Son, our Lord. God manifested in the flesh 
is a man in all human sympathy and tender- 



86 Miracles. 

ness — a man at once human and super- 
human, supernaturally born and supernatu- 
rally endowed, and believing this we fling to 
the winds all questionings as to his ability 
to finish the work the Father gave him to do. 



The Miraculous Element 
in Christianity. 

By Bishop HENBY W. WAEBEN, LL. D. 



THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT IN 
CHRISTIANITY. 

In" this brief treatise no intricate contro- 
versy will be attempted. Some things have 
been settled by the human mind in the em- 
ployment of its best powers for nineteen 
centuries. There is in this world some 
primal granite that is not in a state of flux. 
Actual gravitation and order exist and not a 
Limbo of chaos and old night. I desire to 
state some beliefs, as well settled as a consid- 
eration for centuries of their every possible 
and imaginable phase can make them; to 
affirm and attempt to explain some facts that 
are as solid as the foundations of the earth; 
and to hail with joy some possibilities of our 
nature, when it is put in connection with 



90 The Mikaculotts Element 

power that is above gravitation, steam, and 
lightning — I mean what Herbert Spencer 
calls "An Infinite and Eternal Energy, from 
which all things proceed." 

First: Let me affirm that human testi- 
mony is fully competent to make credible, 
nay, certain to us, things wholly incompre- 
hensible, unimaginable, and seemingly im- 
possible. Human testimony can make it 
undeniably sure to one who has known water 
in its fluid state only, that it can exist as a 
solid, or as gaseous as the mobile air. Long 
before they knew anything of their various 
modes of working, millions believed and knew 
that gas lifted men from the earth; that im- 
prisoned steam did more work in this coun- 
try than every man, woman, and child in it; 
that the telegraph conveyed intelligence over 
the continent and under the sea with essen- 
tial instantaneousness ; that the telephone 
conveys afar all the delicate inflections of the 



In Christianity. 91 

human voice, and that the same force carries 
inestimable burdens. I affirm that the so- 
called miracles of Christ, supported by such 
human testimony as they have, are not in- 
credible, but in the highest degree credible 
and certain. I affirm that the reality of any 
event in ancient history is not so well sup- 
ported by competent evidence as these 
mighty works of Jesus Christ. We have not 
so much evidence to believe that there was 
a battle at Marathon, a murder of Julius 
Caesar, a siege and overthrow of Jerusalem, 
as we have to be sure that Christ wrought 
the mighty works recorded of him. To re- 
pudiate the record of his mighty works, 
compels an equal repudiation of his unique 
birth and resurrection from the dead. It 
silences the song of the angels at Bethle- 
hem, and blots out of human hope all the 
glory of the cross. To repudiate superhuman 
works, repudiates a supernatural or second 



92 The Miraculous Element 

birth for man. Being born again is certainly 
not a natural, but a spiritual event. Kaising 
a soul, dead in sin, to being alive to God, is 
a greater work than raising the dead Laz- 
arus to life. If this last is not true, neither 
is the first. The possibility of both depends 
on the same record. 

I affirm that the common people who saw 
Christ's miracles believed in the reality of 
them. I affirm that the disciples who ac- 
companied him believed in the reality of 
them. I affirm that Christ believed in his 
own miracles, and taught that it was a dam- 
nable sin for us not to believe in them. 

I affirm that any man who can juggle 
these facts out of the Bible record, can jug- 
gle all fact and truth out of the Bible record 
or any other. 

I have used the word supernatural. Per- 
mit me to explain. I used it in regard to a 
spiritual event. In the material world no 



In Chkistianity. 93 

man knows where the natural leaves off and 
the spiritual begins. I presume every one 
of the so-called miracles of Christ was 
wrought according to law, and not contrary 
to it. Some laws of matter are stronger 
and some feebler; and the higher and 
stronger the law, the higher the result. All 
the lower are made to yield to the higher. 

Coming hither I looked at my watch that 
has been working beautifully for forty years 
according to the laws of the watch world. 
Crossing from Western to Central time, I 
suddenly whirled the shadowy hand forward 
round the dial. Was that a violation of law ? 
Yes, of mere watch law. But when it broad- 
ened toward the universe and took me in, 
"whirling was quite in accordance with 
broader law. If we had gone further into 
universal law, my impulse to turn the 
shadow on the dial forward, might have been 
changed to whirl it backward, but no law of 



94 The Mieacttlous Element 

the watch world would have been destroyed. 
Water has one world of laws for its fluid 
state. Add the broader realm of cold and it 
is solid; the broader realm of heat and it 
is working or volatile steam. Add some 
other realm and it may be wine; some other 
realm and it may bear up the footsteps of 
a man. Keep water permanently subject 
to the law of gravitation only, and the ocean 
reposes its vast weight on the earth. Add 
the laws of sunshine and it flies aloft by the 
hundred millions of tons. The lying heav- 
ily, or the flying lightly is as natural one as 
the other. Add another realm of law and the 
divided sea stands upright in heaps as nat- 
urally and as easily as flying aloft in air. 

When I first went away from home to 
school, I saw my teacher of natural science 
light a candle by touching it with a piece of 
wet ice. I saw him put solid gold and sil- 
ver into liquid-fluid, wet as water, and the 



In Cheistianity. 95 

fluid ate up the metal and showed no visible 
trace of its bibulous absorption. But no 
natural law was broken. It was just in ac- 
cordance with the nature of potassium to 
take fire by touching water. Broaden into 
some other realm and the fire on Carmel 
licks up the water in the trench as naturally 
as ordinary water puts out ordinary fire. 

But why specify? Broaden all we know 
and all we do not know into the in finite 
realm, from which all must have come and 
by which it exists, and any known or un- 
known, imaginable or unimaginable, possible 
and seemingly impossible phenomenon is as 
natural as for water to run down hill. The 
realm of will embraces all. Creation cer- 
tainly has been, re-creation certainly can be. 
Fear not confusion, wreck, and chaos come 
again. There is no place where a dozen laws 
and powers are not already in full play. The 
result is not chaos, but cosmos. Let the 



96 The Miraculous Element 

water go up as mist and come down as rain. 
There are fruits and flowers and happy 
hearts instead of desert and death. Face the 
realm of all laws without fear; they are so 
many more possibilities for man. Let the 
lower yield and the higher prevail. There- 
fore will not we fear though the earth be 
removed and the mountains be cast into the 
midst of the sea. It is the coming of the 
new heaven and the new earth. 

Some may think that that explanation of 
a broader realm may account for miracles in 
the material world, but will not avail in the 
world of mind. Is that too broad a chasm to 
be leaped or bridged? I think not. If the 
wind avails to divide seas, why not the 
breath of God avail to move a man's soul, 
which is the breath of God ? Enlarge any de- 
partment to embrace every other and there 
will be perfect order. The south wind can 
reach my spirit through the wind harp of 



In - Christianity. 97 

the pines, and I prophesy rain. The breath 
of a man can make me burn with shame or 
blnsh with joy. Why may not God find his 
means of playing on my spirit for joy or 
shame or for prophecy ? 

After these preliminary statements, what 
is a so-called or miscalled miracle? "It is 
an effect in nature not attributable to any of 
the recognized operations of nature, nor to 
the act of man, but indicative of superhuman 
power, and serving as a sign thereof." In 
short, a miracle is an event with a superhu- 
man meaning. It is an act of God for the 
purpose of giving credential and authority 
to some one as his messenger; it is a Divine 
indorsement, as if spoken from Sinai, of the 
message. How have men regarded them? 
Variously. 

If you find an apple-tree interlaced and 
underlaid with clubs, be sure the apples are 
good. When the Cemetery Eidge at Gettys- 
7 



98 The Miraculous Element 

burg was furiously cannonaded for hours, 
and then charged with three lines of intrepid 
troops, it was clear that the enemy regarded 
that point as the key to the position. So, 
judging by the number and fierceness of the 
attacks on mighty works done for signs of 
Divine power, and commonly but erroneously 
called miracles, we may know that the ene- 
mies regard them as the greatest defense of 
the Christian faith. Hence they must be 
broken down and discredited at all hazards 
and by all means. The most terrific charge 
of modern times was that of the Kussians at 
Plevna. But they only launched three suc- 
cessive columns against the Gravitza redoubt. 
They took it. Six distinct assaults have 
been made against the credibility and fact of 
the Bible miracles. They are yet un taken. 
Of course none of the first five were success- 
ful, or there would have been no sixth. 
The enemies of the faith concede by each 



In" Chkistianity. 99 

new attack that all the others have failed; 
else a new assault would only be, as Gavroche 
said, "Killing my dead." 

Let us recapitulate these futile efforts. 
The first was made by his haters and mur- 
derers in Christ's own time. The people were 
convinced and said, this is the promised Son 
of David; but the Pharisees, while confessing 
the reality of the superhuman work, at- 
tempted to account for it — this man doth 
cast out devils because the prince of devils 
is in him, and he naturally rules them. 
Jesus answered on the spot so that it was 
never raised again. The Jewish assault was 
dead. The cause was still alive. 

It is a great comfort that those sharp 
Pharisees, who were on the ground and knew 
all the facts and had experience in them- 
selves concerning matters of that sort, ac- 
tually confessed that a devil had been cast 
out. So in regard to the changing of a beg- 
LofC. 



100 The Miraculous Element 

ging cripple into a rapturous, shouting, well 
man, leaping and praising God, the critical 
rulers said, "For that indeed a notable mir- 
acle has been wrought is manifest to all that 
dwell at Jerusalem, and we can not deny 
it." The men on the spot, both common peo- 
ple and wise men, believed in mighty works 
utterly surpassing the power of man. 

The heathen assault followed, avowing 
that these works were wrought by some of 
the gods many and lords many with which 
imagination had filled the earth and air. 
The death of Polytheism took all the force 
out of that explanation of conceded miracles. 

The third assault was pantheistic, led by 
Spinoza. He denied the possibility of mir- 
acles since it was contrary to his idea of 
God. Well, it might possibly be that his idea 
of God was surpassed by God's idea of him- 
self. It is far from being modest to assert 
what God can not possibly do in nature be- 



In Cheistiastity. 101 

cause a man's conception of him will not 
allow it. The ridiculousness of this assault 
was like that of Don Quixote on the wind- 
mill — the assaulter was east in the dirt and 
the mill went on. 

The fourth attack was the skeptical one 
led by Hume. He insisted that miracles 
could not be made credible; they were not 
in accord with human experience. Neither 
did the steamship or telegraph accord with 
previous human experience; but they are 
now tolerably credible nevertheless. 

The fifth was elaborated by Paulus in his 
Commentary published in 1800. He calls it 
rationalistic. We often find the darkest 
girls called Blanche or Lily. It is presumed 
that names and facts will make a good gen- 
eral average of complexion. This rational- 
istic theory said Christ did not make bread 
for the five thousand. He generously 
brought out his own stores, and the gen- 



102 The Mikacttlous Element 

erous example induced others to do the same, 
till there was enough to feed the multitude 
and for twelve baskets of fragments. He 
did not tell Peter to catch a fish with a 
stater coin in his mouth, but to catch fish 
enough to sell for that amount. He did not 
raise Lazarus, but shrewdly guessed the time 
he would come out of a swoon. 

The din of this assault quickly died away. 
Every honest Christian man who thought 
that language had laws and words had mean- 
ing, even every unbeliever who wanted even 
this poor respect for the Word of God ob- 
literated, repudiated the theory. Assaulted 
in front and rear at once, this theory be- 
came so poor that there was none to do it 
reverence. 

The sixth and last assault is called the 
historico-critical, and is represented by 
Woolston and Strauss. This method is as 
follows: How should there have been such 



In Christianity. 103 

a crowd to hear Jesus preach at Capernaum, 
where he was so well known Why need the 
four men bearing the sick of the palsy be 
in such a hurry? How could they get up 
to the top of the house? Where did the 
ropes and pulleys come from to let down the 
palsied? Where did they get axes to break 
up the roof ? How could those below escape 
being hurt by falling plaster ? And why did 
not the owner protest and send Jesus up to 
the roof instead of letting the palsied down ? 
Hear their higher significance of the so- 
called miracle of the healing of the palsy! 
His disease indicates a general dissoluteness 
of morals. The four bearers are the four 
evangelists. The house to which he is to 
be carried is the intellectual edifice of the 
world, otherwise called "wisdom's home/' 
But to the sublime sense of the Scriptures, 
called the top of the house, man is to be 
taken. He is not to abide in the low and 



104 The Miraculous Element 

literal sense of them. Then if he dare open 
the house of wisdom he will presently be 
admitted into the presence and knowledge 
of Jesus. To what ridiculous credulity men 
will come who are anxious to reject faith! 

If Jesus came into the world to feed com- 
mon people on this kind of fog and east 
wind, he certainly did not choose his meth- 
ods wisely; for not one in a million ever 
perceived his meaning. We are not ready 
yet to shout, Great is Allah! and Strauss is 
his expounder and prophet. Strauss took 
clear things and muddled them, and left all 
his readers wailing, "He has taken away our 
Lord, and we know not where he has laid 
him." 

Unbelief having done its best in six dif- 
ferent attempts to batter down this rampart 
of the Christian faith, and utterly failed in 
all, let us now ask, What is the meaning of 
a miracle, and what is its value in the Chris- 
tian system ? 



In Chkistiakety. 105 

We are in the midst of mighty forces con- 
tinually in full play. The worlds swing 
orderly, the mountains ascend, the waters 
gather in the valleys, volcanoes spout their 
cataracts of fire, earthquakes topple down 
the mountain crags, thunders roll, and light- 
nings flash. None of these great works are 
accounted extraordinary. They are in the 
regular order of nature. What, then, is a 
miracle? It is an event or effect differing 
from the regularly-established order of na- 
ture, given by the Creator to his messengers 
that they and others may know that such 
messengers are Divinely authorized. Hence 
they are signs from God, not mere wonders 
for men. "Signs 55 is the meaning of the 
main terms used in both the Old and New 
Testaments. The term miracle, meaning a 
wonder, is a mistranslation. It really means 
a sign or token given by God as a credential 
that men may believe his messenger and 
message. 



106 The Mikaculous Element 

This definition would seem to preclude 
the working of miracles, so called, for the 
mere benefit of them on whom they are 
wrought. And I think justly, else all the 
sick would have been healed and all the poor 
enriched. A miracle must have an educative 
and certifying effect. If the good done be 
a sign, the thing signified must be far more 
valuable than the sign. The sign on a man's 
store or office has little value compared with 
the goods or the man within. 

Why are signs needed? Because we will 
accept no revealed religion unless it has 
sufficient proof. And the greater the re- 
ligion — the more imperious the demand — 
the greater must be the proof. Why should 
we allow commandments to be laid upon 
us, restricting our liberty and controlling our 
acts, unless a supreme authority authen- 
ticates the revelation and stands behind the 
commands ? There must be sufficient proof 



In - Christianity. 107 

when authority utters edicts from which 
there is no appeal. This is exactly God's 
idea in the matter. Jesus always spoke of 
his mighty acts as signs conducive to belief; 
that men would not be guilty for rejecting 
him had he not done sufficient works to give 
a perfect and sufficient credential for his 
demands. "If I had not done among them 
the works which none other man did, they 
had not had sin: but now have they both 
seen and hated both me and my Father. But 
now they have no excuse for their sin. Be- 
lieve me for my work's sake." 

This is precisely the value Christ puts on 
these signs. In the discussion that rose 
from that sign of power that healed the 
man at Bethesda, helpless for thirty-eight 
years, Christ said, "The works that the 
Father hath given me to accomplish, those 
very works that I do bear witness that the 
Father hath sent me." Christ had such an 



108 The Mieacttlous Element 

opinion of his mighty works that it was sin, 
damnable sin, not to accept them as authen- 
tication of his claim to be the Son of God. 
"Woe unto thee Chorazin, woe unto thee 
Bethsaida ; for if the mighty works had been 
done in Tyre and Sidon which were done 
in you, they would have repented long ago 
in sackcloth and ashes. And thou, Caper- 
naum, shalt thou be exalted to heaven? 
Thou shalt go down to Hades; for if the 
mighty works had been done in Sodom which 
were done in thee, it would have remained 
unto this day." Christ everywhere proceeds 
on the assumption that a religion that 
claims absolute power over acts, thoughts, 
and conscience must have sufficient proof. 
This proof can not rest on pleasure, recog- 
nized utility, nor general good, but on the 
supreme will of God, and this will must be 
convincingly avouched. The doctrines of 
the Bible do not sufficiently commend them- 



In Cheistianitt. 109 

selves to unassisted human reason. That 
God took our nature, suffered, died, and 
must be supremely and eternally worshiped, 
is not a discovery of the human intellect. 
Nor does it always accept it. Where is the 
proof? Partly by prophets, and partly the 
mighty works done as signs that are now 
before us. 

To authenticate the prophets was a neces- 
sity. If they taught truth already known, 
no credentials were needed more than the 
preacher needs them to-day. But when any 
great advance in revelation was to be made, 
all earth and heaven stood subservient to 
its indorsement. All the ten plagues waited 
as ministrant proofs on Moses before 
Pharaoh, and all the dividing of the Eed 
Sea, the giving of manna, the thunders and 
lightnings of Sinai, the opening of the earth 
to swallow the sons of Koran, waited on 
Moses to authenticate him before the chil- 



110 The Mikaculous Element 

dren of Israel. Without these credentials 
Moses would have been slain as an imper- 
tinent meddler by Pharaoh, or as an im- 
pious usurper by Israel. God constantly in- 
sists on this credential character of miracles. 
On the day of Pentecost, Peter says, "Jesus 
of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto 
you by mighty works and wonders and signs, 
which God did by him in the midst of you." 
And in Hebrews it is said the "great sal- 
tation which at the first began to be spoken 
by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by 
them that heard him; God also bearing them 
witness, both with signs and wonders, and 
with divers powers, and gifts of the Holy 
Ghost." 

The proper feeling, then, for us to have 
at the sight or reading of any mighty work, 
such as feeding a multitude, stilling a 
tempest, raising the dead, is not a stupefy- 
ing feeling of wonder, but an open-eyed 



In Christianity. Ill 

alertness of mind asking, What great truth 
does this authenticate? What great teach- 
ing is attempted? What great Teacher is 
declared to be sent from heaven in whom 
God is well pleased ? The Chinaman or the 
child may regard powder as a means of mak- 
ing a fizz that ends with a cracker ; but a full 
man must regard powder as a means of 
rending the heart out of a mountain, or as 
a power to annihilate the oppressors of the 
race and establish the freedom of man. So 
of these greater powers, those who are 
despisers must wonder simply and perish. 
But the signs which Jesus did were written 
that ye might believe the inexplicable truth 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 
and that, believing, ye might have life 
through his name. The greater the doctrine, 
the greater the need of proof. If there were 
no great revelation offered us, we should 
need no great proof. But we are glad that 



112 The Miraculous Element 

there are truths great enough to require all 
nature to groan in travail, to require that 
seas and lands be divided, that the sun be 
darkened, and the dead raised from their 
graves, sufficiently to certify their greatness 
and reality. All hail to truths so great that 
words of human origin and compass have 
no use! Concerning the stupendous fact of 
the self -resurrection of our Lord, Luke says 
it was made certain by many infallible 
proofs. But the greater fact, that we might 
have eternal life through his name, needs 
many more infallible proofs. But converted 
millions have declared that these proofs were 
blessedly sufficient. 

Itfow, what is a sign, wonder, or miracle? 
It has already been said to be an event with 
a supernatural significance. It is not neces- 
sarily a supernatural event. A miracle may 
not be contrary to nature, as we ordinarily 
observe it, but superior to it It rises above 



In Christianity. 113 

ordinary material laws. But material laws 
are all made elastic, flexible, and easy to be 
overcome when a higher force is brought 
to bear. We overcome gravitation every 
time we rise or toss a ball in air. It is mas- 
tered when the sun lifts millions of tons of 
water and bears it over the continent. 
This is not thought to be unnatural in the 
case of the rain. Why should it be thought 
unnatural when the divided sea stood up- 
right in heaps for Israel's forces to go 
through dry-shod? What is unnatural to 
the department of gravitation is perfectly 
natural to the department of sunshine. And 
what transcends the department of sunshine 
may be perfectly natural to forces that God 
sends to wait on the outstretched rod of 
Moses, that the Egyptians may know that 
he is the Lord. The miracles of earth are 
only the common things of the skies. All 
our forces come out of the spirit world, and 



114 The Mikaculous Element 

are inferior to those that have free play 
there. It is the Spirit that forms the worlds, 
bestows on them the so-called forces of na- 
ture, and upholds those forces by the word 
of its power. Hence, whenever the spiritual 
is brought to bear, all lower forces feel its 
mastering superiority. Man masters these 
lower forces in a thousand ways. And if 
man, shall not God? What Christ did was 
natural to him as breathing is to us. 

I do not definitely determine the question 
whether Christ wrought, his mighty work by 
so-called natural laws with which we are 
not yet acquainted, or by the exercise of 
his personal will. He began the creative 
work by his will before there were any 
natural laws, and can continue so to work, 
and suspend natural laws at will. These 
laws are not beyond the control of their 
Maker and Upholder. So, whether these 
mighty works were done in accordance with 



In Christianity. 115 

or in defiance of natural laws does not mat- 
ter. Man can accumulate a million volts of 
electricity out of its tideless sea for specific 
purposes. So Christ might hurry the 
vegetative processes of the grape, or wheat, 
to cheer a wedding or feed the hungry mul- 
titude, and no law of material nature be 
destroyed. It is only mastered by a higher 
force. 

The term used by Matthew (xi, 20), and 
translated "mighty works," might as well be 
translated mighty faculties; so that healing 
the sick, giving sight to the blind, and rais- 
ing the dead, were the ordinary outworkings 
of his faculties, or capacities. It was no 
more for him to turn water into wine in 
the jar than to do it in the grape; no more 
to make nourishment in his fingers than to 
do it in the growing wheat. If one has a 
God good for anything, expect great things 
of him. I have a couple of Aztec idols, made 



116 The Miraculous Element 

of lava, hideous and useless. Eyes have they, 
but they see not; ears have they, but they 
hear not; neither speak they through their 
throat. I expect nothing of them. One got 
a jolt the other day, and rolled down the 
steps. I did not expect him to pick him- 
self up. But our God made the heavens. 
He who could do that, and uphold them by 
the word of his power without fainting or 
being weary, can do anything. God has 
never sundered himself from nature. He 
constantly represents himself as doing per- 
sonally what we relegate to the realm of 
what we call laws. Laws are only his or- 
dinary way of working; so-called miracles 
are his extraordinary way of working. He 
is the immanent God, and worketh all things 
according to his own will. 

How glad we should be if our best feel- 
ing, thought, action, electness, and effective- 
ness in speech ever equaled Christ's ordinary 



In Cheistianitt. 117 

feeling, thought, and action and expression! 
His every-day life utterly surpasses our 
rarest ecstasy. Of course, his deeds will be 
wonders and signs. Lofty deeds always wait 
on lofty thoughts. King Herod heard of 
these deeds, and accounted for them as fol- 
lows: It is John the Baptist; he is risen 
from the dead; therefore mighty work do 
show themselves forth in him. To have been 
in the spirit world, and come back, is reason 
enough for mighty works. What of Him 
who came down out of the spirit world at 
first, and went back and forth as easily as 
we cross the boundaries between countries? 
Can we ever hope to touch his best, whose 
ordinary so surpasses us? Yes, he says we 
may enter into his joy and sit down on his 
throne. There can be no more intense ex- 
pression. But between now and then we 
must expect signs and mighty works to teach 
mightier thoughts and feelings. 



118 The Miraculous Element 

It is an unutterable joy to me that the 
Son of man, wearing our form and claiming 
to be our Brother, has such faculties, does 
mighty works as easily as I breathe, goes 
back and forth through the gates of death 
unscathed, and goes up from the earth in 
glory, sending his angel to say, "This same 
Jesus shall likewise come again in like man- 
ner." This vitality in all realms, this mas- 
tery of all laws and forces, has enlarged 
our thought, lifted up our humanity, and 
unspeakably glorified our kingship over all 
things. The great triumphs of our age in 
realms of power that seem like the very 
essence of God, are only the alphabet of 
the infinite realm where Jesus wrought. 
We know not now what we shall be, but we 
know that when this same Jesus shall appear 
we shall be like him. He that brings such 
extraordinary thoughts must have extraor- 
dinary credentials. 



Lsr Christianity. 119 

It will be remembered that the great out- 
break of mighty works as signs was at the 
beginning of Christ's career, and not at the 
close. He must be authenticated at the first. 
It was at the very opening of his ministry, 
even before the Sermon on the Mount, that 
there was such a profusion of miracles that 
no attempt was made to describe them 
separately. They were summarized as fol- 
lows : They brought unto him all sick people 
that were taken with divers diseases and tor- 
ments, and those that were possessed with 
devils, and those which were lunatic, and 
those that had the palsy, and he healed 
them. Toward the close of his ministry 
miracles were rare enough to be described 
in detail. When once the teacher gets 
authority, let the wonders cease, that the 
truth may be regarded, unless greater and 
greater truth is to be revealed. 

We see the proper result of every miracle 



120 The Miraculous Element 

displayed in the blind man cured and the 
leper healed. They worshiped him. Why 
have the signs of Christ's power found al- 
most universal acceptance, and the thou- 
sands of asserted miracles of Mohammed and 
the numberless saints of the Middle Ages 
almost universal repudiation ? It is because 
Christ's signs had a perfect sunrise and mid- 
day of new truth to authenticate and in- 
dorse. The others had none. 

How could miracles be such a great 
authentication ? What certificates of Divine 
care do they bring? They were performed 
in the presence of critics and enemies anx- 
ious to repudiate them. Critics now say they 
would like to have these signs performed 
in a hall before a scientific committee of 
investigation. What sort of a hall would 
they desire for the plagues that covered the 
whole land of Egypt, and for the darkness 
that was over all the land of Judea from 



In- Christianity. 121 

the sixth to the ninth hour? What could 
their committee report if the earth swal- 
lowed them up with the other sons of Korah ? 
There was a sharp, alert committee in every 
case, and they said, "That a great and 
notable sign has been wrought is manifest 
to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we can 
not deny it;" 

There was not one miracle merely, but 
many, covering many centuries and thou- 
sands of years. 

Yet as prophecy had its periods, so did its 
sister sign, the miracle. Even the heathen 
poet Horace said, "Let not a god intervene 
unless there is a knot worth his untying." 
We must not call on God for things we need 
to do for ourselves. Hence these miraculous 
signs have great epochs. There are but two 
in the Old Testament, and one in the New. 
When Moses came to establish a new state 
and systematize religious observances, and 



122 The Miraculous Element 

lead the Church up to Canaan, the whole 
heavens bent to aid, and lent all their su- 
perior forces to authenticate the Divine mes- 
senger and message. All Egypt, the Ked 
Sea, the wilderness, Jordan, and the land of 
Canaan so thrilled and throbbed with the 
powers of the heavenly state that Peter re- 
ferred to it at Pentecost, fifteen hundred 
years later, as one of the things best known 
to his auditors, "This man Moses led Israel 
forth, having wrought wonders and signs in 
Egypt and in the Eed Sea and in the wilder- 
ness forty years." Again, when all the true 
religion in the world seemed in danger of 
going down before the witchery of idolatry, 
and Elijah said, "I alone am left who have 
not bowed the knee to Baal," then, once 
more, and by sheer necessity, God put the 
powers of the heavens into the hands of 
men. And they shut the skies that they 
rained not; called down a sort of fire from 



In- Christianity. 123 

heaven that could burn water; divided the 
river Jordan again, and raised the dead. 
Even an angel came to turn the army of 
Sennacherib into dead men. It seemed as if 
celestial powers could not do enough to save 
imperiled religion. 

Then, seven hundred years later, Eoman 
supremacy and corruption covered the earth. 
Even the very gods were debauchees. Wor- 
ship was a debauchery. Skepticism was so 
universal that one whole sect of the Jews 
denied a future life. The other was made 
up of triflers, sneerers, and politicians who 
esteemed their own traditions and puerile 
ends above the kingdom of God. 

Hence, in the time of direst need, the 
King, who had sent his servants that had 
been beaten, shamefully entreated, and 
killed, sends his Son. He must be plenti- 
fully credentialed. The signs are significant 
and sufficient, the voices are definite, "This 



124 The Miraculous Element 

is my beloved Son, hear ye him." There 
could be no greater and more conclusive 
authentication. 

But they hated religion, made the Word 
of God of none effect, disregarded the de- 
clared signs of his presence, and murdered 
the Prince of Life. What could be done 
with such a maniac world, homeless, help- 
less, sobbing or shrieking through the dark ? 
The merciful heavens were not unmindful. 
The same Divine credentials are continued 
to establish the fact that the apostles are 
really commissioned and sent by Christ. 
They teach the same truths. Earth con- 
tinues to borrow the potencies of heaven as 
proofs until the truth is established and has 
free course to run over the earth and be 
glorified. 

What has followed? Not more miracles, 
but more and wider acceptance of the truth 
previously authenticated. Since that hour 



In Chkistiantty. 125 

we have had progress, and not backsliding. 
There has been no century that was not bet- 
ter than any preceding. We are closing one 
long morning of nearly nineteen hundred 
years. We look on gray hints in the east, 
auroral rays that shoot up the sky, clouds 
that change from darkness to glory, morn- 
ing stars vanishing into greater brightness; 
we quaff fresh morning airs that seem like 
breaths from heaven; we hear songs, not of 
birds only, but of happy nations. It is all 
one long morning. What will the noon- 
day be ? 

Will there ever be another epoch of signs ? 
I think not. When the Son of God comes 
he gives the highest ultimate truth. This 
can be expanded and developed, as it has 
been in every department, physical and 
mental, for two thousand years. We have 
not yet reached, in life and practice, the 
whole truth as it is in Jesus. Until we do, 



126 The Miraculous Element 

there is no cause for new mighty works for 
authentication. 

Let the sign eras close. The truths they 
authenticate are a thousand times more dear. 
It is something to say the devils are sub- 
ject unto us, but we rejoice far more that our 
names are worthy to be written in heaven. 
It is something to have palsy cured, but it 
is so small that it is not mentioned in the 
haste of Jesus to say, "Thy sins are forgiven 
thee." A miracle-worker is great, but he is 
nothing to a truth-teacher. Christ showed 
many mighty works, but he said of him that 
believed on him as the Truth of all the 
worlds, "Greater works than these shall he 
do." His mighty works were recorded for 
our learning and encouragement. 

The Power was always sufficient and in- 
fallible. There was no case that baffled the 
Worker, a resurrection being as easy as a 
birth. The stilling of a storm of a whole 



Isr Chkistianity. 127 

sea turns on a word as readily as baffling 
the rage of one man. It made no difference, 
even to earlier and minor prophets, what 
sign was asked. To Ahaz Isaiah offered any 
sign. Make it deep unto hades below, or 
high in the vault of heaven above. And to 
Hezekiah it was no matter whether the sign 
should be the going forward or backward 
of the shadow on the dial. The ease of all 
these things makes belief in our greater 
things of the future possible. Glance ahead 
with the eye of prophecy. The gospel of 
the kingdom shall be preached to all nations, 
the precious light of our nineteenth century 
shall penetrate all places of darkness. The 
habitations of cruelty shall be full of kind- 
ness and love. Long after that, the world 
and all that is therein shall be burned up, 
pass away with a great noise; but we look 
for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. Creation certainly 



128 The Miraculous Element 

has been. Re-creation is as possible. The 
new Jerusalem shall come down from God 
out of heaven adorned as a bride for her 
bridegroom as easily as we send up a balloon. 
We will remember that all these mighty 
works, unthinkably great, are still for signs 
of higher thought and greater ecstasy. The 
sea of glass, the streets of gold, the walls 
of precious stones, the glory that can not 
be borne by mortal vision, the painless, tear- 
less state, the sound of shouts like the voice 
of many waters, the harpers harping with 
their harps, are not finalities, but are signs 
of inner states and spiritual joys. It has 
always been a matter of Christian faith that 
wrecks and destruction are not provocative 
of despair, but rather helps to soul states 
better than lost or recovered worlds. There 
is a sacred trust that can not be shaken. 
It is only heightened by miracles of disaster. 
The psalmist said: "God is our refuge and 



In Chkistiantty. 129 

strength. Therefore we will not fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though 
the mountains be carried into the midst of 
the sea; though the waters thereof roar and 
be troubled, though the mountains shake 
with the swelling thereof." Such miracles 
of destructive power are only signs of the 
protective power to those whose refuge is 
in Him. So testifies Habakkuk, so Paul, so 
Peter. It is precisely the case of an old 
colored woman in the earthquake at Charles- 
ton. Houses were crashing down, the earth 
tossing like waves, men's hearts failed them 
for fear. They cried out and prayed in the 
agonies of despair. But she was shouting 
for joy. It was a sign of the power of her 
God. "Hallelujah! my Jesus has power to 
shake terribly the earth!" So with the 
wreck of the worlds. If that great event 
can be made a sign of power and an in- 
centive to confidence in that power, all the 



130 The Miraculous Element 

inhabitants thereof and all the spectators 
from heaven shall surge forward in one great 
sunburst of new faith. God would gladly 
wreck a world any time if the mighty work 
would give new trust to his humblest child. 
That is largely what death is for. 

Previous to the great revelation of the 
future state, one great miracle may come to 
us all. The prophecies, providences, and 
miracles in our daily lives have come to be 
so common that we think of them as mat- 
ters of course, naturally to be expected. We 
long for some fire to come down on our 
mountains; some voice that shall be as per- 
sonal to us as the Father's was to our Elder 
Brother; some Jordan to be divided in our 
pathway to the promised land. Our Father 
is not unmindful. We come to the Jordan 
of death. In surprise we find ourselves pass- 
ing over dry-shod. We say, There is no 
river. We hear a voice saying, with infinite 



In Christianity. 131 

tenderness, "Lo, I am with you. Be not 
afraid." Thus there comes into our experi- 
ence as great a miracle as ever came to Moses 
or Elias. It is a sign of a great idea, a new 
revelation. Faith bursts into full flower, and 
so the heavenly Canaan is entered. Thus 
death is ours, and its great miracle can bring 
such an outbursting faith that men of the 
best and highest life here may say, "To die 
is gain." 



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